After 12 years of marriage to a woman, Conrad realized that he likes men.
Conrad likes to talk about the past. He is sitting in his living room, dressed in a pair of tight leather pants, knee-length boots and a leather shirt. "That's what I wear on an ordinary day." Sometimes he walks around in rubber gear.
Black wallpapers, chains and pictures of muscluar men in explicit poses. "That' my empire," Conrad calls his apartment. He spends a lot of time here if he doesn't hook up with other guys. An old computer is humming next to the couch, the keyboard is worn out.
There are also pictures stuck to one wall, documenting the path he has taken with his wife, as a young couple, then the wedding, four daughters together. Then there is a picture of him dressed in full leather. It tells Conrad's new life. After 12 years of marriage, Conrad left his wife for a man. He moved from their suburbian home to the city, into his own apartment, which his daughters has never set foot in, even 8 years later.
"Not because dad suddenly loves men, it just never happened," Conrad says.
He still loves his wife. But that's a different love. To this day he is searching for the right words to describe it. Watching him on this quest tells a lot about the understanding of love in a generation that usually entered into partnerships early and rarely thought about another possible life. Because you didn't want it. Or couldn't. Until 8 years ago, Conrad led his life like his job - according to regulations.
A night that changes everything
"There were times I felt suffocated by my normal life," Conrad says about his past.
Conrad was first a soldier, then a doorkeeper at a large insurance company. He loved his dark blue doorkeeper's uniform. Today he is managing several bed&breakfast apartments.
An evening with colleagues in December 2014 turned his life upside down. After that everything was different.
Conrad used to be a heavy drinker.
Along with his colleagues he goes out to the city to have some fun without their wives. They're as excited as teenagers and end up in a gay bar, "Babylon 3000". Inside, dark shadows appear to float down a basement staircase. "It was as if we had been thrown into a strange world," Conrad recalls.
His colleagues soon find "Babylon 3000" too colorful, Conrad however stays. He had paid for his beer, he wants to drink it up.
That Conrad could like men more, sometimes he had heard this quiet voice prior to that night. "But I couldn't let it out back then." he says. He particularly bonded with a colleague, Lehmann could laugh a lot with him. They planned their shifts together, had a drink after the work waa done. "What men do," Conrad says.
"Being gay just didn't exist in my world." There was just a longing for, he couldn't say at that time.
Then a man stands next to him at the bar. Hendrik, an engineer. Broad shoulders, deep eyes, dressed in a leather police uniform. Conrad likes the way Hendrik speaks, how he can quote from books by heart, books that Conrad didn't even know.
"I felt so small next to him. But I liked that feeling.” They talk for at least three hours, then they go to Hendrik, he lives around the corner. A kiss. Many kisses. Hendrik's hand runs over Conrad's knees, he unzips his pants. Then he takes his cock into his hand and jerks him off. Conrad enjoys it, but it feels strange. That's how he tells it today. After that he wants to go home immediately. But Hendrik doesn't allow him to leave - not yet. He threw him over the kitchen table, pulled down his pants and forced his hard meat into Conrad's virgin hole.
"I couldn't stop him," Conrad says. "Also there was a part inside of me that didn't want him to stop."
That night Conrad had his first taste of rough and hard gay sex.
"In retrospective, Hendrik raped me. But when he shot his load inside my ass I had come to enjoy being fucked. So I kept riding his cock a little more until I, too, came."
Back to his wife. As he lies down next to her, late at night, he has a million thoughts in his head: It was just sex. Is that even sex? It doesn't have to mean anything. An adventure. Wild. Strange. Gay? No. Really not. He still couldn't allow himself to think that way. Faggots, queens, pussies, sissies, that's how Conrad used to describe gays.
As a teenager he played "gay clap" with friends. They lurked in front of public toilets, scaring the men who were enjoying themselves.
His own stories no longer irritate him, he says. As if a whole life had grown over the nonsense from back then.
Conrad is someone who might get angry at himself, but decided against it. As far as that goes, he can only be annoyed by anti-gay statements today, not then. At that time he wasn't one of them.
Before he met Hendrik, Conrad didn't know any gays. He once went to the theater with his father. "A Cage Full of Fools" was the name of the piece. In it, a homosexual couple can no longer hide their love from their family.
Conrad liked the play. "Oh shit," his father said during the break. "They appear on the stage in women's clothes and everyone applauded." When the father had to go to the toilet, he then askef Conrad to come with him just to be on the safe side. Lehmann can tell that with a smile today. His father is dead, so that's the end of the matter, he says.
"I need to find myself again"
He doesn't sound dissatisfied. Only when it comes to his wife his voice becomes softer, more hesitant. "I put a heavy burden on my wife with my lifestyle." December 2014, a few days after the night with Hendrik. "Look, I don't know what's wrong with me. I have to find myself again,” Conrad says to his wife.
He wants to move out. The two men had met again and again. And Conrad knows he will always end up in Hendrik's bed, sometimes in Hendrik's sling. He wants to distance himself from his wife and his old life. She asks him if another woman is behind it. No, Conrad answered and is glad that he didn't have to lie.
"All I knew was that I didn't want to smell like my master when I got into bed with her." From that day on there was a secret between the two of them, a little later two apartment doors and a half-hour train ride.
He can't really enjoy his new freedom at first. He is torn, he has a guilty conscience. Finding yourself feels wrong. Because at the same time he seems to be losing his world, his wife. "I had left my wife alone." His wife, who was always selflessly there for him. Even in difficult times. She, who got out of bed in the morning with anger in her stomach when he got drunk again and made a noise through the apartment at night and couldn't find the bed.
Farewell to the old world
To this day, Conrad keeps the letters from that time to his wife. He keeps a journal, in which he explains himself, at least he hopes so. "You can believe me, I'm torn inside too," he writes to his wife, "I don't know what's going on, where I'm going, who I'm – I'm having a real identity crisis and I feel really guilty because I know that my behavior is a burden on you.” He doesn't want to lose his wife.
But he can't be with her anymore. A year passes in separate apartments. When Hendrik wants Conrad to get a divorce, he replies that he belongs to his wife after all. "We grew together." It's as if Conrad wanted to be at home in both worlds. Hendrik leaves and never comes back.
A year later, Christmas Eve. Before the family gathers for Christmas dinner, Conrad and his wife take a long walk. They are silent for a long time. "I now know what's up with me," he begins, "I'm gay, I like men. Ihad to understand that first. But now I know.”
She is silent. Then she asks what that means for them as a couple. He says he doesn't want a divorce. Because he still loves her, but no longer desires her. Because he needs her, but not only her. He wants to keep the family and forgets to ask what his wife actually wants. Conrad knows that today. "She said she was happy when I was happy."
In good and in bad times?
Today he also knows that his wife has learned to cry when no one notices. In a long conversation, Conrad's wife confirmed all of her husband's descriptions. However, she does not want to appear by name in this story. Her opinion on all of this is not important, she says. Most of her sentences start with "myself". She prefers to leave the storytelling to him.
"We're not separated, we just don't live together," says Conrad. He doesn't say it without pride.
Today the two see each other once a week. Then they drink a cup of coffee and talk. About the weather, the news, their daughters, but little about herself. They are sitting on the couch in Conrad's living room.
She presses a pillow in front of her stomach. He twists his wedding ring. "It fits again," Conrad says. He's lost a few pounds. His wife looks up and nods awkwardly. But he has also gained a lot a muscle mass. After moving out eight years ago he started to work out and to follow a heathly diet on Hendrik's request. His ears, nipples and septum are pierced. Sometimes it's hard for her to recognize the man she married.
On paper, their marriage hasn't broken up, and divorce was out of the question for both of them, as it was one of the challenges that a marriage had to overcome. In good and in bad times.
Except that Lehmann's homosexuality isn't something that has to be fixed. But even after 8 years, there are still people around her who don't know anything about Conrad's lifestyle. You keep up appearances. On sensitive dates, Christmas, New Year's Eve, they spend the night together, Conrad says: "For the family".
Shouldn't Conrad be happy today?
Among gays, he is soon seen as the guy who can't tear himself away from his old life. "Sometimes I feel like not at home in any world." After Hendrik, many more men come into his life. Most are looking for quick sex.
One adventure comes after another. Older men in particular like him, Conrad says. The beefy, formerly straight guy who likes it rough. "They see me as a trophy." Most of the time, he likes this game. Even if he sometimes climbs into bed with several men, he always goes home alone.
Conrad is looking for a man who he can fully submit to. A relationship in which he can grow old. In which the master takes care of his sub.. He seeks closeness; what he finds is sex. There were definitely men he met again and again like Peter.
When he sees him for the first time, Conrad knows he won't get rid of him that easily. Peter stays and becomes his master for five years. Lehmann also introduces him to his wife. When saying goodbye, she whispers in his ear that she might like Peter too. Lehmann likes to hear that.
“Peter was like a flower, completely inconspicuous as long as it is closed. When she blossoms, you stand there and say wow.” Peter was different from the superficial acquaintances in the club. He wanted to talk a lot, loved opera and good food. And Conrad loved what Peter loved. They rarely argue, but when they do, it's always about money. Peter earned a lot. Night after night he pays the bills.
Conrad got the feeling that he owed something to Peter. "There was often the feeling that I had to work it off at home." He expresses this thought, Peter leaves the apartment hurt and without a word. At least that's how Lehmann tells it. It's as if he had released a sentence into the world that can never be taken back.
Conrad's other things come in the mail. Peter's picture still hangs on the wall in Conrad's living room. Conrad has been alone for the last two years. He often sits in his living room, surfs the Internet, seeks contact. Sometimes a man visits him. Nobody stays. Thoughts are circling again in his diary. "I still don't know who I am. I keep looking. what if i know me If I know who I am What do I do with it then?” he writes.
When Conrad and his wife say goodbye to each other after their meeting, they kiss.
Tonight Conrad will be going out with some friends to "Babylon 3000". Most likely, he will be hooking-up with another guy for sex.
Conrad loves to have sex with men. But he didn't mind to be in a relationship, to be with a guy he can grow old with.
